Lights, camera, scrum feed: league hits the big screen

Garry Maddox
July 26, 2006
THE list of Australian sports films is short. Fresh from winning Young Australian of the Year, director Khoa Do and his comedian brother Anh decided to add to it.

Not only did they want to tell a rugby league story, they wanted to set it where they came from, in the western suburbs of Sydney. And, unashamedly, they wanted to make it a positive film.

Footy Legends premiered last night, before its release next week. It’s a feelgood drama about six battling friends who enter a footie comp to get some respect in their lives.

Among them is Luc, a Vietnamese-Australian played by Anh Do, who is trying to find a job while bringing up his little sister alone.

The film also features Claudia Karvan playing a social worker and Peter Phelps as a coach, as well as cameos from such former rugby league stars as Brett Kenny, Brad Clyde, Cliff Lyons and Matthew Johns.

“It’s kind of an antidote to negative headlines about rugby league, about Sydney’s west, about people from different backgrounds,” said Khoa Do yesterday. “We live in a sports-mad country yet we don’t have many sports films.”

How the 27-year-old came to make Footy Legends is a feelgood story in itself.

Brought up in Yagoona by parents who fled to Australia from Vietnam, Do was an unknown actor and director whose life changed when he went to teach filmmaking to troubled youths in Cabramatta.

One was facing a jail sentence for armed robbery, another was on parole, a third was making daily visits to a methadone clinic. “I thought the best way for me to teach filmmaking was to go out and make a film together,” he said.

Without a script, crew or money at that stage, they collaborated to make The Finished People. It was such a raw account of life on the streets that it was released in cinemas and nominated for two Australian Film Institute awards.

“Guys who had not finished high school were now all AFI award nominees,” said Do. “I still remember walking the red carpet with these guys, next to people like Geoffrey Rush and Cate Blanchett.”

The film’s success led to Do being named Young Australian of the Year last year.

“Lleyton Hewitt or Ian Thorpe – really well-known people – normally receive the award, so you’d never think someone like myself could receive it,” he said. “I spent the entire year travelling around the country and met a lot of young people – a lot of guys who’ve gone through tough times …

“That was one of the best things of the award – having the opportunity to travel round Australia and kind of inspire young kids.”

When it came time to make a film with a real budget – $2.9 million instead of $20,000 for The Finished People – the Do brothers drew on their experience playing junior rugby league for a perpetually hopeless team.

“I hope every kid from Yagoona to Penrith to Kalgoorlie will watch this film and think that all his hopes and his dreams are possible,” Do said.